This invention relates to radiation shielding apparatus and, more particularly, to a radiation guard especially suitable for use in conjunction with a diagnostic table, such as an X-ray table.
There is a well recognized need to protect medical personnel from extended exposure to radiation, such as X-rays, or to patients that have received radioactive materials for therapy, tracing, etc. Ordinarily, the exposure time of a physician, technician or nurse regarding an individual patient will be relatively short and without consequence, but typically a specialist will be subject to possible exposure many times per day. Each patient may be on the equipment for a considerable time with it typically being necessary for medical personnel to manually reposition or examine a patient a number of times. The cumulative effect of exposures during such procedures can be hazardous to medical personnel.
This danger is well understood and, in the hope of minimizing it, it has been suggested that a removable leaded shield could be mounted on the table next to the patient. This is inconvenient, however, since the shield between patient and operator must be removed in order for the operator to manually reposition or examine the patient. To overcome this inconvenience, it has been further suggested that a number of "flaps" of leaded rubber be provided to hang next to an X-ray table, the flaps being readily moved aside by the operator when manual contact with the patient is necessary. This solution is not adequate, however, since the flaps offer no protection when the X-ray table is tilted vertically and, even in the horizontal position, the flaps offer little protection to an operator's body when they have been pushed aside in order to reposition a patient.
It is one object of the present invention to provide a solution to the aforementioned problem.